The Medicine Man

by Dianne Drake

  “DocChay said my mommy was a horse spirit,” Kimi finally said. “That a horse spirit is very brave.”

  “And what else did I tell you?” Chay prompted.

  “That she loved me very much.”

  “My own mother went away when I was your age,” Joanna said. “But she didn’t have a horse spirit to take her. I think your mother was glad to have a horse spirit.”

  “What kind of power animal did your mommy have?” Kimi asked.

  “She didn’t have one,” Joanna said. “Where I came from people don’t have power animals to help them like your mommy had.”

  “Do I have one?” Kimi asked.

  Joanna looked at Chay. “I don’t know much about those things, Kimi.” Would he tell her? she wondered.

  “DocChay calls me Little Butterfly. Is that my power animal?” Finally, a little farther away from the immediacy of her mother’s death, Kimi began to relax. She even took a little more interest in her soda, Joanna was relieved to see. Of course, this was only the first hurdle for her. There were so many yet to come.

  “You are a little butterfly,” Chay said. “Which means you have great courage for the changes you will have to make. The butterfly will help you through these changes, help you to find the place you’re meant to be.”

  “Is DocJo a butterfly, too?”

  “No, DocJo is a hummingbird, I believe.” He looked across the table at Joanna and smiled. “Someone who searches for the sweetness of life. A hummingbird’s long tongue lets it bypass the often tough and bitter outer layers of a flower or plant to find the hidden treasures lying deep within. It’s said that hummingbirds bring love as no other power animal can, and her presence means joy to everyone around her.”

  “That’s lovely,” Joanna whispered.

  “That means we can both fly,” Kimi squealed in delight. “Can you fly, too, DocChay? Are you a hummingbird or a butterfly like DocJo and I are?”

  “He’s a deer,” Joanna said, her gaze fixed on Chay. She waited for a response from him, but all he did was pick up his cherry cola.

  It was near suppertime when Joanna and Chay returned Kimimela to the Chamberlains’ home. For a while her mother’s death had been put aside, but now that the moment was over, Kimi clung to Chay with a fierceness Joanna had never seen in someone so young. She wasn’t about to be left behind again.

  “I’ll come back to see you tomorrow,” he promised.

  “That’s what my mommy said,” Kimi screamed, holding on to him for dear life as Emil Chamberlain tried to lift her from Chay’s arms. “Please, don’t leave me, DocChay. Please. I want to go with you.”

  “Let me have her,” Joanna said, trying to take Kimi into her arms. “Will you come with me, Kimi?”

  Kimimela gave Chay the most forlorn look Joanna had ever seen, but didn’t fight when Joanna took her. They went only to the wicker chair on the Chamberlains’ front porch, where Joanna held and rocked Kimi for the next hour, whispering things to her that a grieving child needed to hear, things Joanna had needed to hear but never had. Then finally, when Kimi was exhausted and dozing off, Joanna took her to the Chamberlains’ guest room, laid her down on the bed, and promised her she would be back. Kimi was long asleep by then, but even so, Joanna stayed there another twenty minutes before she went back to her own bed above the clinic and fell into it, into Chay’s arms.

  “What’s going to happen to her?” she asked.

  “Tribal law will keep her here, with her own. Someone will take her in. Maybe even the Chamberlains, since she’s already there and their own children are already grown. Whatever happens, Kimimela will have a family here, one way or another.”

  “It’s so tough, though. She’s scared right now, and nobody can understand the depth of that fear.”

  “You can,” he murmured, pulling her close to him.

  “You’re good with her,” Joanna said. Good, natural, caring. All the things Kimi would need in a father. Things she’d never had.

  “I’m not keeping her,” he said. “I know it seems like it might be a good thing right now, and she’s a great kid, but Kimimela needs some stability. And that’s not me. I live a bachelor’s life in Chicago, a bachelor-without-kids life. Besides, she needs to stay here, with people who can teach her about her heritage. Look, I’ll talk to my mother tomorrow and see if she has a suggestion. She probably would have taken Kimimela herself, except now with my dad…” He dragged in a tired, ragged breath. “But she might know someone since Donna did work for her. It’ll work out, Joanna. I promise you that. One way or another it will work out.”

  Not always, Joanna thought. It hadn’t for her. She didn’t want Kimi going through what she had. First one family then another. People who’d only wanted her when it had been convenient. Kimi needed a better life, deserved a better life. And had it not been for the fact that she wasn’t a Sioux, like Kimi, she might have taken the child herself. But that wouldn’t be allowed because, as Chay had said, they would take care of their own. Kimi was their own. As much as Joanna felt at home here, she wasn’t.

  Snuggling into Chay, Joanna had a sudden vision—her, Chay, Kimi. A family. Nice, but not possible. It was a vision that would break her heart if she kept it. And she did so want to keep it. “Sometimes life just isn’t fair,” she murmured.

  “But sometimes it is.” He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Now, how about that nap…?”

  “I need something else first,” she said, tilting her face up to him for more than a gentle kiss on the cheek.

  It was still dark when he awoke, and Joanna was still snuggled into him. They’d made love with amazing ferocity, despite their exhaustion, then she’d cuddled up to him and slept. And she hadn’t moved all night. Spooning with him, with her naked body pressed into him—just feeling it there started his day off with a rousing dilemma he didn’t need. He was scheduled to go home today, and back into his regular surgical rotation tomorrow. Hip replacement bright and early in the morning, and Mrs Wilmer had waited a good long time for it. Putting her off wouldn’t be right. But with everything going on here, leaving right now wouldn’t be right either. “Damn,” he muttered, slipping out of bed.

  He was headed downstairs to make a call to his partners, but he was still naked and there was no telling who might be lurking down there. It was a public clinic after all. People here respected privacy so no one would breach the stairs into Joanna’s apartment, but that might not be the case elsewhere so, instead of dressing, which he intended to do after his shower, he went to the phone in the tiny kitchenette and dialed one of the partners in his practice.

  “Look, Rob, it’s really a mess here. My dad’s still in critical condition, my mom’s with him day and night. And my grandmother…Anyway, I’m not going to make it back tomorrow.” Neither could he come close to promising a date. He listened to Rob Liebman complain for a few minutes, even though Rob was a good guy and a great surgeon. Rob would take care of things on that end, maybe even water his philodendron if he asked, although it was probably already dead. “I’m really socked in here, man. All kinds of obligations hitting me every which way and, to be honest with you, there’s not going to be a graceful way of getting out of it.” And there were long minutes now when he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. Staying here with Joanna and Kimimela, taking care of his mother and grandmother…He felt the tug. But he also felt the overwhelming obligations, the ones he had turned his back on years ago.

  So maybe he should be turning his back again. That was a thought not too far from the front of his mind. Standing there shoulder to shoulder with it, however, was this totally irrational notion that he might be the butterfly in transformation, that his was the change being made. “Look, I’ll get back to you in a couple of days and let you know my plans. Maybe I’ll come home. God knows, what I have going on back there is a whole lot easier than what I have going on out here.”

  He clicked off, then crawled back into bed with Joanna, pulling her against him once more. One more hour
, he promised himself. One more hour, then he’d face the day. And the decisions.

  Nestled into Chay’s embrace, Joanna opened her eyes. She’d heard the phone conversation and of course he had to go home. That had been clear from the start. But knowing it hurt very much anyway.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “HELICOPTER?” Chay asked. “You’re going by helicopter?” They were on the outskirts of Rising Sun just after dawn, and the helicopter was sitting several hundred yards away from the Jeep, stirring up enough dust to obscure the remnants of a spectacular sunrise.

  Joanna squinted into the sunrise anyway. Even when she couldn’t see it, knowing it was there always gave her hope for the new day. “Believe me, if there was a better way, I’d take it. But I don’t know what’s going on up in Douay, and from the symptoms I’ve heard I don’t have time to drive.” She grabbed her medical bag and her duffel from the seat of her Jeep and looked wearily at the chopper. Definitely not her favorite mode of transportation by any means, but necessary at times. Especially right now. “Don’t know when I’ll be back either. This might take a few days.” A few days if she was lucky. Many more if she wasn’t. And maybe he’d be gone by the time she returned to Rising Sun, but that was her life. Little bits of disjointed pieces never quite fitting together to form anything whole or permanent. This morning’s call from Douay had been about three members of the White Eagle family who were all sick. They shared the same symptoms, and those symptoms weren’t good.

  “Do you need some help up there?”

  Such a nice thing to hear Chay offer, but the fewer people exposed the better, if this turned out to be what she thought it was. “No, I’ll be fine.” Besides, a few days’ working with Chay had spoiled her, and now it was time to get un-spoiled, and this was as good a way to do it as any.

  “You’re being pretty vague about this, Joanna, but I’m guessing you know what you’re getting yourself into. Right?”

  Yes, she certainly did know, in more ways than simply the medical. Right now, though, her job was the only thing that mattered because shortly she’d be seeing symptoms such as chest pain, fatigue, some weight loss, generalized chills and fever. All this had been spread out over a few weeks, according to Lawrence White Eagle. Of course, nobody had paid much attention because no one was really sick enough to stay in bed. Lawrence had mentioned to Joanna he thought it was a lingering cold or a simple case of flu.

  Then last night his wife, Rachel, had started coughing up blood. She was the first in the family with that ominous symptom, but it had scared Lawrence enough to put in the call to Joanna first thing this morning, especially since his five-year-old daughter and his mother were showing some of the same symptoms.

  “Mycobacterium tuberculosis maybe,” Joanna said, trying not to sound too alarmed. The mere mention of TB always brought a hard chill down on the crowd, and while she’d never seen the disease on the reservation she always knew it was a possibility, especially among the Native American populations where the incidence was twice that of anybody else in North America. Unfortunately, several members of the White Eagle family were displaying the classic symptoms, which was why there had been no protest from her superiors over her request for a helicopter. Some conditions didn’t merit a debate over costs, and for her bosses in Billings this was one of them.

  “You’re not serious, are you?” Chay asked, obviously trying to dredge up the disease that most physicians had relegated to dusty corners in their mental archives, since the general assumption was that it had disappeared years ago. “TB? Do you think you’re really dealing with TB?”

  “Yes, I think so. There are still about sixteen thousand cases of it reported in the United States every year. No particularly bad outbreaks, but in little clusters. And I think that’s what this could be, judging from the symptoms I’ve heard. A little cluster.” She hoped it was only a little cluster.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “My sentiments exactly when I found out.” She glanced over at the chopper pilot who was waving her to the aircraft. “Look, Chay. I’m not good at goodbyes. I know you’re going back to Chicago soon, and I may not be here when you leave. So thanks. Thanks for everything. It’s been nice having another doctor around for a few days. It made the job less lonely.” She leaned into the Jeep, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then turned and ran to the helicopter before she had a chance to think about what she’d just done. She’d given the man she could quite possibly love, maybe even for the rest of her life, a casual thank you, then the brush-off. But that’s all she could do. Her reality wasn’t his, and this was her reality.

  As the chopper lifted her into the air and turned north, she didn’t look down, couldn’t look down to see him one last time. This job was all about broken hearts, and she’d just have to learn to get used to it. Or not put hers out there to be broken again.

  On the ground, Chay watched Joanna disappear into the clouds. Then he headed to the nearest telephone.

  Lawrence White Eagle was sick, too, as it turned out. Mild symptoms like everybody else, but they were developing, and when Joanna arrived he was running a slight fever. His brother, Ernest, was symptomatic, too, Joanna discovered. Definite fever, a mild cough rattling around in his chest that he tried hard to stifle. But he clutched his chest when a spasm of coughing seized him then left the room, and Joanna wondered if he, like Rachel White Eagle, was experiencing hemoptysis—coughing up blood.

  The entire clan lived in the same house with very little separation of living spaces. Seventeen of them, all from various generations, resided under the same roof, so to speak. It was more like a compound than an actual house. Several structures tacked together for the convenience of proximity. A nice, tight-knit family structure, but one Joanna feared could have serious consequences for those many of the White Eagles she’d yet to examine, because the spread of mycobacterium TB was through coughing and sneezing. People in close proximity to someone with TB risked breathing in the bacteria being sprayed out by someone infected, and becoming infected themselves. With so many people under the same roof, the possibility of an epidemic existed without any of the family members even breaching the confines of their own walls.

  “OK,” Joanna said to Lawrence, once she’d taken a quick assessment of the situation in his home, a veritable breeding ground for TB. “First thing I need for you to do is have everybody put on a mask.” She handed him a box of disposables. “No exceptions. Plus hand washing. Lots of it.” Those precautions probably came much too late, but they made her feel better. “And anybody who is obviously sick, such as you, needs to be separated from those who don’t seem to be sick. In the meantime, I have to take a look at everybody who’s not feeling well, even if it seems to be something minor like a headache, tiredness, fever, chills. Anything out of the ordinary. Also, I’ll be testing everybody here once my supplies arrive, and giving the ones without the sickness a vaccination.”

  “I can pay,” Lawrence said, his voice resolute, albeit muffled, from underneath the mask he was tying behind his head. “I can take care of my family.” Over the months Joanna had received more forms of payment than she’d known existed—sewing, mechanical work on her Jeep, food, livestock. While she didn’t always know what to do with her bounty, nothing was ever turned down because paying was a matter of pride, even though the bulk of everything necessary for medical care came from Indian Medical Alliances without regard to anybody’s ability to pay.

  “Good, then we’ll work out the details when I’ve finished here, if that’s acceptable.”

  Lawrence smiled. “Thank you.”

  “So, let me go take a look at the rest of your family and see what’s up.” Then after that she needed to do the same with the rest of the one hundred and fifty residents of Douay. This was going to be a long couple of days, and in Douay there was no place for her to stay. No makeshift clinic, no front room like she used at Mrs Begay’s. Nothing.

  Indian Medical Alliances had testing supplies and medications on
the way and her first order of business was to go scrounging for a place to store them, one where she could stay, too. Any little room away from the flow of TB spray would do nicely.

  Outside, on the dirt road, Joanna took off her mask and gloves. Talk about isolated. This town was so far beyond the end of the road that the end of the road wasn’t even visible from there. It was just a smattering of weathered, wooden houses dotting about a mile of barren countryside. The only thing that marked it as a town was the Douay welcome sign, plus the Douay garage and gas pump, owned by the White Eagle family, sitting across the street from their compound. The garage stocked a few dry good necessities on a couple of shelves inside, kept its gasoline pump full since there wasn’t another pump around for miles, and was the place where the old-timers gathered on the wooden porch outside when they wanted to get away from home. Right now, two of them, typical Sioux elders with graying black braids streaming down to their waists, were seated out front on stools, with a wooden crate propped between them. She guessed there would be a checkerboard on the crate, because they were fixed on their game, whatever it was.

  Over her months on Hawk, Joanna hadn’t come to Douay too often. The folks here didn’t have need of her, and when she did show up, no one ever came in for medical services of any kind. A very independent lot, she’d decided a long time ago. Half the men, like more than half the men spread throughout Hawk, lived and worked on the ranch, driving home on Friday nights to bring groceries and other supplies and be with their families and returning on Sundays. And they knew where she was when they needed her. Like today.

  Yes, definitely isolated, she thought, looking up at the helicopter making its way to the little enclave.

  It landed in the middle of the main road, which really wasn’t a road so much as a wide spot between houses. Knowing the amount of dust it would kick up, Joanna dashed as far away from the landing spot as she could and turned her back to it, because any dust applied to her might well be permanent until she returned to civilization. She chuckled. Most people wouldn’t even consider Rising Sun civilization, but compared to this it was a thriving metropolis.